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Kalman Kalocsay, Part 2

© David Poulson

Kalman Kalocsay was born on the 6th of October 1891 in the small Hungarian town of Abaujszanto. In his late teens he went to the University of Budapest and began to study medicine, receiving his diploma in 1916. After that came several years of military service but he survived the First World War and in 1920 he took up a position at a hospital in Budapest where the patients suffered from infectious diseases.

Kalocsay never went into general practice but remained at that hospital until 1967, climbing steadily up the medical hierarchy. He also became a specialist in the treatment of infectious diseases and began to teach medical students at the university where he himself had formerly studied. Kalocsay died in his 85th year on the 27th of February 1976.

Kalocsay was one of those extraordinary individuals who seem to be able to pack at least two lifetimes into one. Certainly, their energy levels and their achievements seem far beyond the reach of indolent individuals like me! So, while creating for himself a distinguished medical career as a leading physician, specialist, and university professor, Kalocsay's really outstanding achievement lay elsewhere: not in the sciences but in the humanities. He was one of those rare individuals who successfully bridged the gap between "the two cultures."

For example, Kalocsay had a talent for music. He could play the piano and, as might be expected from someone with such a fund of creative talent, he also composed music a little. He was a poet and produced original works, first in Hungarian (of these I know nothing) and then in Esperanto. (Many of his poems can be found here: http://www.webcom.com/~donh/don/esplit/k....)

He was a linguist who knew Russian and several western European languages, as well as his native Hungarian and Esperanto. He was a movement activist, several times president of the Hungarian Esperanto Association and editor of La Literatura Mondo (The World of Literature). With Gaston Waringhien, he wrote La Plena Analiza Gramatiko - a complete analytical grammar of Esperanto. He taught Esperanto to others. He wrote texts on Esperanto prosody and the art of translation. And he himself translated.

In my next Topic article, I will discuss the reasons why Kalocsay, such a gifted writer of original poetry, devoted so much time and energy to the ask of translation but first, to give some idea of the scale of achievement of this true giant of Esperanto literature, I will list his more important works. This information, which I regard as an important part of both Esperanto history and bibliography, is neither widely known nor readily available.

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